


An Unpleasant Business

by remuszaneredvines



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Episode 45 coda, Gen, Spoilers for Episode 45
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-16
Updated: 2014-04-16
Packaged: 2018-01-19 13:57:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1472395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/remuszaneredvines/pseuds/remuszaneredvines
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A man who is not tall and a man who is not short have a meal at the Moonlite-All Nite Diner, but something is different now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Unpleasant Business

A man who is not tall sits in a diner, across from a man who is not short. The mint green neon light shines down on them, starkly contrasting with the dark void of the sky outside, visible from the window by the booth. The man who is not short is talking, but no one is listening, not really. The man who is not tall nods in all the right places, and hums in all the right places, but he does not hear what the man who is not short is saying, not really. He is thinking of something else, someone else. The man who is not short talks for a few moments more, before asking the man across from him if he is listening at all, but he knows already. He knows that the man who is not tall is not listening, that he is thinking of someone else. The man who is not tall murmurs something that is not meant to be an answer. He offers the man who is not short some fries from his plate, which is nearly as full as it had been when the waitress had set it down with a clatter some time ago. The man who is not short does not take the fries, instead voicing concerns about his arteries. The man who is not tall moves his plate back toward himself, and the man who is not short begins their one-sided conversation anew. One man speaks, the only sound in the diner besides that of the other's hums, space fillers that are carbon-copied from conversations with another man, one who was not short, like the man across from him, but also one that understood what he meant by his hums, unlike the man across from him.

"Are you all right?" The man who is not short asks the man who is not tall.

He thinks for a moment, remembers that only a few hours earlier, another man had sat across from him, one that took his offer of fries and understood the meaning behind it, one whose small talk was somehow infinitely more bearable than that of the man who had replaced him. The radio crackles from above, static-y as it had been earlier, but not broadcasting his every move or thought anymore. He is glad of this, he thinks. He wonders what would have happened if he had made one less movement that day, but he pushes the thought away. It's a dream at best, a mutinous, punishable dream at worst. Those of his occupation do not dream, not usually. Those that do are dealt with, quickly. The man used to know someone who dreamed. The man thinks, remembers, wonders. 

"I'm fine," the man who is not tall answers, but he isn't, not really.

**Author's Note:**

> I loved these guys so much.


End file.
